


On a Ship in the Middle of a Lonely Sea, Memory Comes Back to Thee

by steelneena



Series: CR 2 Oneshots and Short Series [31]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: A What If Scenario for 2x99, Angst, Big spoilers for 114, Gen, Molly and Vess DeRogna meet for the first time., Molly survived 26
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:40:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27358153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelneena/pseuds/steelneena
Summary: I just had to do it
Relationships: The Mighty Nein & Mollymauk Tealeaf
Series: CR 2 Oneshots and Short Series [31]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1280990
Comments: 8
Kudos: 62





	On a Ship in the Middle of a Lonely Sea, Memory Comes Back to Thee

**Author's Note:**

> I just had to do it

The world’s gone insane. Molly doesn’t know what to do, watching helplessly first as Fjord and Orly are revived in relatively quick succession. Jester is upset and frantic still over Fjord, pressing at his abdomen, splattered with red, and Caduceus is settling in to one of his healing trances to buff up the rest of the Nein and the other crew who suffered under Uk’otoa’s onslaught. The remnants of Fjord’s wound capture Beau and Veth’s attention as well, but Caleb stands behind him where Molly had kept him through the fight. Not that Caleb really needed his assistance in that way too frequently anymore. No, Caleb had grown powerful in his own right – attractively so. All the same, Molly had yet to fall out of the habit. 

He turns, curious, to see that Caleb’s attention isn’t on Fjord like the rest of them. And that’s when he hears it. The undeniable sound of a dimension door, followed by an involuntary tightening of the muscles. Familiar and unwelcome, Molly manages to shake off the hold spell, and tries to meet Caleb’s eyes as the terrible horror that this ordeal isn’t over and they’re already at their wits end. He sees Caleb just as handily shiver and look up before his gaze rivets to a space directly behind Mollymauk as the whisper of incantation in the air dissipates. 

Instinctually, Molly follows suit, pivoting where he stands. There, on the deck behind them, is the new arrival. A half-elven woman, short brown hair and billowing assembly robes floating in the arcane and physical wind around them. With her hand out, attention focused on Fjord, so it seems, Molly takes a moment to consider her form, vaguely familiar before Caleb speaks up. 

“Ja, hallo, identify yourself please-“ 

“I would like you to iden-“ she says in her light accent, turning in their direction, but cuts off when her eyes lock with his own and widen for a moment in horror. The trip up is obvious enough that she cannot hide it and in his peripherals, Molly can sense Caleb looking between the two in realization. 

Whoever this is, she certainly hadn’t expected to see him – well. His _body._

And that _never_ bodes well. 

“ _Y-You.”_ She utters the words with such violent horror, the syllable actually tremulous, that Molly cannot help but smile. _Good_. Let her fear him. Let her overestimate and judge, because her spell suddenly drops and the frozen figures of Beau and Jester shake back to life. “You…you are dead.” 

“Not bloody likely,” he replies, barking a laugh at her as he pulls his swords, igniting them across his neck, and she takes a step back, her form rigid, not the with poise with which she had arrived, but rather in fear. “Want to test that theory anyway?” As he moves forward, slowly and with poise, muscles tense – and he is _not_ afraid of her. He’s _not_. That would be stupid - she takes a step back from him, her entire attention focused on him, their eyes locked. The world narrows. There is only the woman, her fear, and him. 

Until Caleb’s voice shatters their psychic chains. 

“You are Vess DeRogna. Archmage of Antiquity. Surely you do not have an issue with we who have helped to broker this peace between the Empire and the Kryn?”

A bitter laugh manages to weakly find its way out of her throat. “Peace!” The word is strangled, harsh, as though Molly’s hand were on her throat instead on his eyes. 

“Yeah,” Beau steps up behind her, squaring her shoulders, Yasha flanking, both threatening. “Peace. You want to mess around with that peace, or do you want to tell us what the hell is going on?” 

“Call off your dog and then we might speak like civilized individuals.” 

In response, if only to be contrary, Mollymauk hisses out a syllable of Infernal, designed to spike fear as well as pain. It works, because that light, the sparking reflection of his own internal flame conjured somehow by her mere presence – and he is afraid, but _not_ of her, but rather what she _means_ – is the best indicator of her delectable terror. 

“I’m afraid," Caleb continues, evenly, his voice dangerously low. "he is rather more akin to a cat, Lady DeRogna, and thus not so easily heeled. Perhaps if both parties were to…ah…lower their defenses?”

Tentatively, her hand wavers, and Molly drops his swords just a little. “I will if _she_ does,” he spits. Suddenly, Caleb’s hand is on his shoulder, warm and firm and stabilizing. 

“Peace, my friend,” Caleb hushes, and Molly notices for the first time that since the Assembly lady showed up, he hasn’t used Molly’s name once. “That is what we are here for, after all. _Peace_.” 

His swords lower further, as does DeRogna’s outstretched hand. 

“I came to check on the ship –“

Bells are ringing, Molly notices. Warning bells. Someone must have noticed the ambush. 

“I assume then,” she begins haltingly, addressing Caleb, though she hasn’t wavered from staring Molly down. “based on your confusion at my arrival that you are not responsible for the wounded on this deck?”

“No, indeed, we are the ones who were assaulted.” Molly leaves off listening then, focusing the whole of his attention on the woman. There’s something about her that he can’t put his finger on, at least not quite, and that’s the truly worrisome part. Because that means that some part of him, some part beyond the physical _remembers_ her. 

And if he _remembers_ her, that means…

Molly swallows hard, shuddering, and pushes the thought away. It doesn’t bear thinking about. He can’t stand to. Instead, he grasps at the alien anger that has built within him at the sight of her, and balls it up, hard, around the walls of his mind, shoring up the mental defenses he’s terrified might crack and burst if he’s not careful. 

The longer he stares at her, the more tenuous those fortifications feel. 

What thoughts lay within her mind?, he wonders instead, as she stares at him with such similar terror as he himself has tempered to hide. What options are thought through, discarded and recast?, he considers, as she attempts to manage the situation between the Nein. What does she know and how badly will it hurt when it inevitably passes her lips in his hearing? In the hearing of the Nein?

“The Mighty Nein, correct? I have been made aware of who you are. The Martinet speaks highly of the aid that you provided back in Rexxentrum."

Someone responds. Molly misses it. It’s unimportant. She’s nervous – for the first time, she’s finally looked away from him, her eyes darting warily about the deck of the ship. 

“Are you traveling with…others?” she asks, and the sinking feeling in his gut intensifies. 

She’s looking for _his_ friends. _Lucien’s_ friends.

The _Tomb Takers._

“Just the crew.” Beau’s shoulders are squared up. “This is our Captain, Fjord, and I’m first mate. You got a problem with my Bo’sun?” The indication is enough and Vess DeRogna shakes her head. 

“I think we can all manage to be...civil. Do you require assistance with your wounded?” 

“No, we’ve got it handled.” Jester’s arm tightens around Fjord. “But thank you for checking in with us.” 

Molly’s hand is tight around his saber hilt. Every iota of his being screams in time with the pounding of his pulse that this woman should die. Though her name is practically meaningless to him, and her face unfamiliar, the desire is so strong he’s almost claustrophobic with it. Never once has he wanted so badly to kill someone, never once felt himself composed of such a singular intent. It’s intoxicating. Terrifying. The air is thick with the copper of Fjord and Orly’s blood, but even beyond that he can smell the sweet scent of Vess DeRogna’s lifeblood pounding thick through her veins and he itches to drag it forth from her body, to vent that precious substance out from every orifice. 

“Very well. I will...return with the news that all has been...handled. Perhaps we will speak more before the journey is out.” 

She lifts, with a showy hand gesture, into the air and floats back towards her own ship and even though the distance grows, the desire and intent does not dissipate, and Molly watches her go until she is obscured by an unfurled sail, and only then does he notice that the entirety of the people on deck are watching him, expressions utterly unnerved. 

“Molly?” Yasha’s voice breaks through. “Did you know her?”

 _No_ , he thinks, instantly. “Yes,” he says instead, voice betraying him. 

Only when Caleb turns him, does Molly realize that he’s shaking. 

“You know a member of the Cerberus Assembly?” Caleb’s usually bright blue eyes are serious. Stormy. “One we have never before met in person. We saw her from afar, that day in Felderwin, but you do not mean that, do you, Mister Mollymauk.” 

It’s the thing farthest from a question, but Molly nods anyway. His hands shake so hard that he loses his grip and lets the sabers clatter to the deck. Almost simultaneously, his legs give. Yasha rushes in, the others behind her, and together with Caleb she catches him where he sways on his knees. 

A shrill, piercing sound, consistent, like ringing in his ears, fills the air, and with each beat of his heart, her face solidifies in his memory. Above him, looking down on him, her expression was a malicious snarl, a self-satisfied smirk, the red eyes pooling onto her hands, born in bursts of light to match his own, as he felt his heart slow, his breath rasp away into the barest breeze.

“Molly?” Someone asks, frightened, nervous. Maybe it is one of them. Maybe it is all of them. Between beats of his heart, the world returns to him. Yasha’s arms around him, concerned friend’s faces peering down in juxtaposition to the memory - _the memory -_ as it fades. 

“She killed me.” His blood is so loud in his ears, he can barely hear himself speak. “She killed me.” 

He doesn’t want to remember any more. 

The world goes black. 


End file.
